The news is that Rick Perry is going to try and one-handedly save the day by proposing a reconditioned plan that lowers the property tax savings from $11 billion to $7 billion over the next two years. The big selling point is a teacher’s raise of about $1500. Once again, Rick just doesn’t get it. He’s talking tax savings for the wealthy, still! It just goes to show that Republicans don’t care much for Texas school kids or the middle and working class.
According to the Express-News:
House Democrats will push a separate plan that they say is superior to others because it would give teachers a $4,000 pay raise over two years and also deliver bigger school property tax cuts.
Their plan would drop the maximum school property tax rate from $1.50 per $100 valuation to $1.25 per $100, in addition to increasing the homestead tax exemption to $45,000 from $15,000 today.
Tripling the homestead exemption would help middle-income families more than the affluent.
The average San Antonio home has a value of $109,000 and a school property tax bill of $1,410. Under the Democrats’ proposal, that value would drop to $64,000 for tax purposes, resulting in a school property tax bill of $800.
Now that’s what I call responsible tax savings that benefits the majority of Texas families, while educating Texas school kids!
Of course, we still need to read more about the plans, but I seriously doubt Rick Perry will offer anything that Craddick will approve of, much less Democrats!
Great. My house tax (a relatively painless and invisible one) goes down by a few dollars a month. So, what tax goes up? And, on whom? I run a business. Small. Very. Sole proprietor & operator. How much can you tax my $50K income before I just close it? After my already high Federal taxes, that is.
ramoncookpe@sbcglobal.net
As a teacher, I am curious about how a state with large multi-lingual populations, such as Texas, could be affected by the administration’s No Child Left Behind act. It isn’t just in Texas where the GOP appears not to care for school kids or the middle or working classes… we deal with a lot of that crap here in Oregon too!
I have always been convinced that NCLB is little more than a way for the Bushfolks to end the public education system and replace it one that is all private. I believe Bush is mad about our education system being funded through tax dollars, in part because he thinks kids should be going to school to pray and learn about the Bible, and because he thinks most Americans feel the same way he does. On the opposite side, I get ticked when I hear about people wanting to use my tax dollars so kids can go to school to pray and learn about the Bible… arrrgh. I for one want my kids going to school to learn to respect science, not to dismiss it as irrelevant; why do some of the right-wing leaders want to return society to the Dark Ages? Maybe the populace was easier to control back then, eh?
With NCLB, the government has set the bar of achievement low for starters, requiring that only about 40% of kids at a school pass their math and reading proficiency tests. That’s pretty easy, as most schools can do that.
Where it gets interesting is that the bar gradually gets raised until schools are supposed to have a 100% success rate by something like the year 2014. Schools who don’t meet the government’s required success rate must first pay for students to be sent to other schools of their parents’ choice (which will cost them buckets of money) and if they continue to “fail” they lose funding.
How can a school be considered a “bad” school under this plan? Well… students in a school are divided into subgroups. There are groups based on ethnicity. The school’s mentally retarded population is considered “normal” when it comes to taking and passing tests! If any subgroup fails, the whole school fails. If a subgroup with limited English skills fails, the school fails. If the retarted kids don’t pass their tests, the school fails.
For example, in an area where Spanish-speaking people are moving in, and they aren’t all proficient in English… and these students are working at learning English for passing the required tests… the success rate may not be high until the students are more proficient with the English language. But if their subgroup fails… the whole school fails, and gets defunded. If these kids are trying hard, and learning more and more as their English skills catch up to those of their English-as-first-language peers… why should all the students be penalized? Does this discriminate against Spanish-speaking immigrants? Russian-speaking immigrants, like in a couple of areas here in Oregon? Does it discriminate against the retarded? Sure, I think it does.
I also think Mr. Perry should keep his property tax savings at $11 billion and use some of the money to prop up schools that will be closed and ultimately privatized under an NCLB plan that to me is nothing but discriminatory, and designed to turn our public schools into a privately-run system in which corporations can make money and in which there wouldn’t be much church-state separation.
Then again, when you’re in teaching like I am, and you are getting attacked constantly by the right wing, you tend to have pessimistic viewpoints about the matter! Heh. Anyway… the Democrat plan definitely sounds better.